OREANDA-NEWS. On 17 March 2009 was announced, that the corporate business revenue of Bank Vozrozhdenie for 2008 went up by 51% and amounted to 13.9 bln. rubles or 70.4% of total bank’s revenue as of 01.01.09. The total number of corporate clients increased by 10.5% and exceeded 55 thousands as at the end of 2008. Meanwhile the number of SME clients increased by 10% amounting to more than 40 thousand enterprises.

 “Given the continuing negative trends at financial markets since the second half of 2008 the bank was taking measures on reducing the corporate loan portfolio exposure along with toughening the requirements to the volume and quality of collateral” — noted Deputy Chairwoman of the Management Board Lyudmila Goncharova.

In order to reduce credit risks Bank Vozrozhdenie increased level of discounts applying to all types of collateral and readjusted the range of credit products taking into account new market conditions. Above mentioned measures led to contraction of the loan portfolio growth and reduction of credit risk. Nevertheless, during the year the bank increased corporate loan portfolio by 25% up to 80.1 bln. rubles as of 01.01.2009 vs.64.1 bln. rubles a year ago. The amount of interest income on the transactions with corporate clients constituted 10.9 bln. rubles.

The major part of the bank’s corporate clients are SMEs. SME loan portfolio amounted to 49.7 bln. rubles as of 01.01.2009 (62%) vs 38.9 bln. rubles (60.7%) as at the end of 2007. Loans to SMEs constituted 62% of the bank’s corporate loan portfolio. SME loan portfolio grew by 28% during 12 months and reached 49.7 bln. rubles.

The growth of non-interest income amounted to 52.6% in 2008. Such growth was attained due to the increase of fees & commissions collection level, the increase of non-interest income per one client ratio, centralized tariff management, close monitoring of discounts and extra charges used, transfer to per operation method of fees charging. The non-interest income earned by the corporate business in 2008 amounted to more than 3 bln. rubles vs 2 bln. rubles in 2007.

The bank significantly strengthened its term funding base increasing the volume of funds raised from corporate clients to 18.8 bln. dollars in ruble equivalent that amounted to 26.6% of the total growth. The most part of deposits (44% of the whole portfolio) was attracted for 1-3 year term. Significant portion of that deposits the bank got from finance companies, insurance companies and service companies.

In 2008 Bank Vozrozhdenie has signed an agreement on cooperation with the Fund of Moscow SME financing assistance and was included into the participants list of the Program of guarantees to SMEs. During the year the Bank issued 135 mln. dollars of loans under the Program of the Fund.

Bank Vozrozhdenie commenced the cooperation with the number of companies which are strategically important for the Russian economy including:

— OJSC “Mosenergosbyt”, the largest Russian energy distribution company; the bank will provide settlement services.

— The Group of companies “Nova Roll”, the largest Russian producer of sticky bands, polymer film and plastic bags; the bank has signed the loan agreement and will provide payroll services to the company.

— Holding “Stalconstructsiya”; the bank will provide settlement services, issue bank guarantees and get funds into deposits.

— International network of hypermarkets “Globus”; the bank and the company has signed the centralized agreement on cash collection and counting.

— “Victoria” group of companies, the owner of supermarkets network “Kvartal” has signed an agreement with the Bank on the basis of which the bank will provide 24 of the group’s supermarkets in the Moscow region with services on cash collection, counting and changing.

— The network of coffee-houses “Shokoladnitsa” has signed the loan agreement and the agreement on cash collection for all coffee-houses “Shokoladnitsa” which will be opened in the Moscow region.

In 2008 the bank has doubled the volume of trade finance operations for its clients’ partially due to the widening the range of trade finance products. In particular, the bank provided its clients with deferred payment L/Cs without cash collateral, post financing of the L/Cs and special loans backed by the insurance of national export agencies, banking guaranties as well as other instruments.